Pork Sausage Stew

Last night, my sister and I were once again in charge of making dinner, and our mother thawed a package of ground pork sausage with the purpose of us making a stew. While I enjoy a typical beef stew, especially Julia Child's recipe for 'boeuf bourguingnon' which we made approximately a month ago, pork sausage adds a whole new depth and flavour to the common stew.

We began by preheating our oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Then we added our pork to a casserole dish with two tablespoons of flour and put it in the oven to let some of the juices render out so as to incorporate the flour. We thought that the flour added at the beginning would help to thicken the sauce, but we found we required cornstarch as a thickener at the end of the cooking time after all.

After the pork and flour step, we added a mixture of chopped parsnips, carrots, and potatoes, some sliced onions, and some shredded cabbage. We covered our mixture with a can of tomato soup and enough water to cover all the meat and vegetables, and seasoned liberally with salt and pepper, rosemary, thyme, and three bay leaves.

After setting the mixture in the oven for approximately an hour, until everything was cooked and tender, we mixed together six teaspoons of cornstarch with enough water to make it just above a paste and incorporated it into the sauce of the stew. Then all we had to do was pop it back into the oven for 10 or 15 minutes until thickened, and serve with some freshly made bread.

The result was an extremely addictive stew, because the pork meat was tender, and the carrots and cooked onions always add a nice sweetness to any soup or stew that I make. I don't typically add cabbage to my stew, but I was inspired by a cabbage stew I ate in Montreal last week called 'bigos' at Stash Cafe. I think that the cabbage adds terrific texture to a mixture that could otherwise become mush, as stews often do. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this stew as nearly all of it was eaten in one sitting and I didn't make the stew specifically for this blog. When I make it again, I will have to be sure to get a picture.